The Common Core Standards are the next solution to providing students with high-quality education. This new set of standards comes from the collaboration of teachers, parents, students, and community leaders, who took into account the foundation of standards that individual states have already made.
This set of standards is designed to be more straightforward, so that students and teachers know exactly what is to be learned at each grade level. These new standards focus more on core conceptual understanding of procedures at early grade levels and leaves enough time for the students to truly understand and master the concepts later through problem-based learning.
With this collaboration of students, parents, and teachers, the community can work together toward a common goal of yearly progress and the acquiring of necessary knowledge to thrive in the modern, global workforce.
How does it look for the 6th grade?
Mathematics:
Students build on their work from elementary grade levels, by working with shapes, perimeter, surface area, and volume.
Four Critical Areas:
Connect ratio and rate to whole number multiplication and division. Students use rate and ratio concepts to solve problems.
Understand the meaning of fractions, the meanings of multiplication and division, and how the concepts work together. Students extend this knowledge to all rational numbers, including negative numbers. They further explore order and absolute value of rational numbers, and how they appear on all four quadrants of a coordinate plane.
Writing, interpreting, and using expressions and equations. Students understand the use of variables, they rewrite expressions in different forms, they solve problems with equations, and they describe relationships between variables using tables.
Understand statistical thinking. Students recognize trends between numbers, such as data distribution, mean, median, mode, interquartile range, and standard deviation.
They also prepare for 7th grade by doing scale drawings of polygons on the coordinate plane.
Overview:
Ratios and Proportional Relationships
Students should understand ratio concepts and be able to use ratio reasoning to solve problems.
The Number System
Students will apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to divide fractions by fractions.
Students will compute fluently with multi-digit numbers and find common factors and multiples.
Students will apply and extend previous understandings of numbers to the system of rational numbers.
Expressions and Equations
Students should be able to apply and extend previous understandings of arithmetic to algebraic expressions.
Students should be able to reason about and solve one-variable equations and inequalities.
Students should be able to represent and analyze quantitative relationships between dependent and independent variables.
Geometry
Students should be able to solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume.
Statistics and Probability
Students should be able to develop an understanding of statistical variability.
Students should be able to summarize and describe distributions.
Examples:
Ratio Examples
Question: After visiting the bird house at the zoo what is the ratio of wings to beaks?
Answer: 2:1 because for every 2 wings there is 1 beak.
Question: If you pay $75 for 15 burgers, how much was each burger?
Answer: $75/15 = $5 per burger.
Number System Examples
Question: Simplify 4(9+2)
Answer: 36+8
Question: Simplify -(-3)
Answer= 3
Question: Explain how to interpret -3>-7 on a number line
Answer: -3 is to the right of -7 on a number line oriented from left to right.
Expressions and Equations Examples
Question: Express the calculation "Subtract y from 5"
Answer: 5-y
Summary:
In summary, the Common Core Standards seem to be a more well-rounded, organized, and attainable approach to teaching. Rather than focusing on regurgitation for standardized tests, it appears to be an attempt for higher-level, problem-solving thinking. There's a focus on mastery of primary concepts, and it seems that there is slightly more room for teacher creativity. Time will tell.
Common Core Grade 6
Brooke & Laura
What is the Common Core?
The Common Core Standards are the next solution to providing students with high-quality education. This new set of standards comes from the collaboration of teachers, parents, students, and community leaders, who took into account the foundation of standards that individual states have already made.
This set of standards is designed to be more straightforward, so that students and teachers know exactly what is to be learned at each grade level. These new standards focus more on core conceptual understanding of procedures at early grade levels and leaves enough time for the students to truly understand and master the concepts later through problem-based learning.
With this collaboration of students, parents, and teachers, the community can work together toward a common goal of yearly progress and the acquiring of necessary knowledge to thrive in the modern, global workforce.
How does it look for the 6th grade?
Overview:
Examples:
Summary:
In summary, the Common Core Standards seem to be a more well-rounded, organized, and attainable approach to teaching. Rather than focusing on regurgitation for standardized tests, it appears to be an attempt for higher-level, problem-solving thinking. There's a focus on mastery of primary concepts, and it seems that there is slightly more room for teacher creativity. Time will tell.